his friends to be in
the shadow of madness. They kept a close watch over him; and at last
Bowling Green, one of the most devoted friends Lincoln then had, took
him home to his little log cabin, half a mile north of New Salem,
under the brow of a big bluff. Here, under the loving care of Green
and his good wife Nancy, Lincoln remained until he was once more
master of himself.

But though he had regained self-control, his grief was deep and
bitter. Ann Rutledge was buried in Concord cemetery, a country
burying-ground seven miles northwest of New Salem. To this lonely
spot Lincoln frequently journeyed to weep over her grave. "My heart is
buried there," he said to one of his friends.

When McNamar returned (for McNamar's story was true, and two months
after Ann Rutledge died he drove into New Salem with his widowed
mother and his brothers and sisters in the "prairie schooner" beside
him) and learned of Ann's death, he "saw Lincoln at the post-office,"
as he afterward said, and "he seemed desolate and sorely distressed."

McNamar's strange conduct toward Ann Rutledge is to this day a
mystery. Her death apparently produced upon him no deep impression.
He certainly experienced no such sorrow as Lincoln felt, for within a
year he married another woman.

Many years ago a sister of Ann Rutledge, Mrs. Jeane Berry, told what
she knew of Ann's love affairs; and her statement has been preserved
in a diary kept by the Rev. R.D. Miller, now Superintendent of Schools
of Menard County, with whom she had the conversation. She declared
that Ann's "whole soul seemed wrapped up in Lincoln," and that they
"would have been married in the fall or early winter" if Ann had
lived. "After Ann died," said Mrs. Berry, "I remember that it was
common talk about how sad Lincoln was; and I remember myself how sad
he looked. They told me that every time he was in the neighborhood
after she died, he would go alone to her grave and sit there in
silence for hours."

In later life, when his sorrow had become a memory, he told a friend
who questioned him: "I really and truly loved the girl and think often
of her now." There was a pause, and then the President added:

"And I have loved the name of Rutledge to this day."

ABRAHAM LINCOLN AT TWENTY-SIX YEARS OF AGE.

When the death of Ann Rutledge came upon Lincoln, for a time
threatening to destroy his ambition and blast his life, he was in a
most encouraging position. Master of a profession in which